SaveGameBackup is a clever free tool which makes it easy to back up your saved game progress in over 1,300 popular games.

Why bother? Your game state can represent many hours, days, even weeks of effort: if a file is corrupted or lost then starting all over again probably won't be an appealing option. And having backups stored independently from the application means it's easy to restore them, even if you've bought a new PC. You can even share your favourite saves with friends.

SaveGameBackup comes as a portable package, so is very straightforward to use. Just launch it, and the program will immediately list any supported games it finds (all the big-name series are supported - Age of Empires, Aliens vs Predator, Broken Sword, Call of Duty, Harry Potter - and many others, including your Steam database - click the Supported Entries button within the program for the full list). Choose the folder where you'd like your backups to be stored, click Backup, and that's it, you can then just sit back and watch while the program does its work.

Restoration is just as simple. Click Restore > Refresh List, check the box next to your chosen game(s), and click Restore to recover any saves.

And if for some reason SaveGameBackup doesn't support your favourite game, a Custom Entries option enables you to add the necessary details yourself. Just point the program at the location of your save files and Registry settings, add Include and Exclude filters to define exactly what you're backing up, and in future these saves will be protected along with everything else.